Forbes Coaches Council
Top coaches offer insights on leadership development & careers.Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

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Forbes Coaches Council

Top business and career coaches from Forbes Coaches Council offer firsthand insights on leadership development & careers.

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8. Partner With Schools

Establish internships and partner with schools to build interest and skills from targeted groups and communities. If you build the opportunity for educational paths, you can establish a long term pipeline of job candidates where a pipeline did not exist before. - Amy Douglas, SparkCoaching, LLC

9. Avoid The 'Quick Hire'

Leaders should make diversity a higher priority by ensuring that there are many diverse candidates in the candidate pool for all open positions. Most companies go for the "quick hire," choosing candidates that are former colleagues and referrals from employees and friends. Although they may fill positions quickly, these hires most often lack diversity. - Elva Bankins Baxter, Bankins Consulting, Inc.

10. Create A Company Culture That Supports Diversity

If you want to have more diversity, you must create your company culture in such a way that it is attractive to a diverse group of candidates. Things like LGBTQ-friendly policies, celebration and and time off for important holidays for diverse religions, and paid parental leave are a good place to begin. A company can look for where anti-diversity exists within the company and correct that. - Janet Zaretsky, The Zenith Business

11. Make Your Search Intentional

Companies need to be intentional to make sure that each and every search has a diverse candidate pool. If they do not see a diverse pool responding to a posting, it is their responsibility to reach out one-by-one to diverse candidates and ask them for participation. Chief diversity officers in any company or college might be a good source for local candidates. - Barbara OMalley, Exec Advance LLC

12. Look Beyond Your Usual Places

To seek out diverse job candidates, a company must be open to someone whose background does not fit into a cookie-cutter mold. For example, consider hiring someone who comes from a different industry, or who has slightly different skills. Look for candidates beyond the universities you are the most familiar with. Review resumes from more than one job website. - Angela Copeland, CopelandCoaching

13. Build A Diverse Management Team First

Seeking out diverse candidates isn't hard. Recruiting those candidates and placing them in an environment where different backgrounds, cultures, and experiences are appreciated is more difficult. If companies have done this correctly it should be reflected in the makeup of the management team. Once a company has this kind of environment, diverse candidates will come and stay. - Donald Hatter, Donald Hatter Inc.

14. Send The Right Message In Your Employer Marketing

It's important to send a clear message in terms of marketing the company as a diverse workforce and inviting people in. Demonstrate how the company is doing this in line with its mission and values, to attract the right candidates. Enlist employees to assist in creating this environment and recruitment, and make it easy and fun. Be proactive in meeting the needs of potential candidates. - Sharissa Sebastian, Sharissa Sebastian - Life & LeadershipCoaching

15. Advertise In Diverse Media

Instead of advertising in the usual places, seek out media whose readers/viewers are of diverse backgrounds. Find different religious, cultural and ethnic publications, T.V. stations, websites, etc., and place career ads there. - Dawn Ali, Happy Rich Great Body